A Quick Chat with Friends of Friends

Can you tell me a bit about your latest single ‘Morphine’?

We were all pretty excited about the track early on. Barnaby found this pretty ugly sound on one of his synthesizers that mimicked heavy guitars, and wrote the chorus and verses in a morning. A new song is always exciting when it comes together quickly, and Morphine felt like it happened in a few hours. Barnaby has a wall in his home studio full of lyric scribblings and ideas that he can quickly draw from while the music is flowing, and Morphine became a love letter to leaning on those close to you while going through hard times. His Mother almost lost her life to cancer a few years earlier and had a second scare at the time of writing Morphine, and so the song drew heavily from that experience. 

What’s the creative process like in the studio?

Barnaby demos out most of the music from home before taking it into the recording studio to track out ‘good versions’ of the instruments and vocals. There’s always something special and a few happy accidents that are captured in the moment during the demo process that we try to keep in the final recording. For example, we accidentally put Auto Tune on the main guitar lick in the verses, and it made this wild altered melodic thing that sounded too cool to replace once we got into the studio. We are always looking out for things moments like that, constantly recording sounds we find to throw into the mix. A lot of the background noises and ambience comes from weird little voice memos or funny synthesizer sounds we find to keep everything as organic as possible. Sometimes it’s the sounds you can’t quite hear hidden throughout a record that give it the right emotions or feelings that you can’t put a finger on, but completely change everything when they’re not there.

What have been your favourite album releases from this year so far?

Beadadoobee’s Beatopia has been a favourite of ours this year. It’s got everything from pretty ballads to some harder hitting tracks like ‘Talk.’ It’s super well rounded and great from start to finish. Another favourite comes from a more obscure artist - Deaton Chris Anthony, with his album SID THE KID. There’s some cheekiness in here that’s really appealing, paired with some super creative and interesting textures, heartfelt moments as it’s littered with art-tracks that make the whole ‘sitting down to listen to an album’ experience really fun. 

If you could share the stage with any musician (alive or dead) who would it be?

David Byrne! We’re such big fans of Talking Heads. Everything from their live show, to his solo projects are incredible 

What was the first concert you ever went to?

Death Cab for Cutie! I just turned 18, and it was such good timing that they came to Aus. I distinctly remember Ben Gibbard (lead singer) breaking a string, and just throwing his guitar off stage snapping the neck. Had huge IDGAF energy.

Where did the name ‘Friends of Friends’ come from?

Friends of Friends was originally going to be the name of our first EP, but we realised it summed up the band in a much more profound way. We met the rest of the band through mutual friends as Barnaby and Tom needed more musicians to make the early instance of the project come to life for the live shows, but now we’re inseparable. 

Christmas is round the corner - what’s on the playlist?

River by Joni Mitchell

Wintering by The 1975

And it’s not Christmas without Frank Sinatra, so the whole A Jolly Christmas is on there too. 

What’s in store for the rest of the year?

As the year comes to close, we’re lucky enough to sneak our first appearance at a major festival in, playing at Spilt Milk in Dec. And then the rest of the year will be spent in the studio, putting the final touches on our next releases set to come out early next year 👀